Support For Overdose-Reversing Drug Low, But Can Be Bolstered With Right Messages

July 8, 2015

“While most Americans do not support policies designed to increase distribution of naloxone – a medication that reverses the effects of a drug overdose – certain types of educational messages about its lifesaving benefits may bolster support for its use, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

In a report published July 1 in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers say that combining educational messages about naloxone with sympathetic narratives about people who could have been saved had the drug been available could be key to increasing support for wider availability of the medication.

A common misperception that impedes strategies to increase access to naloxone – for instance, a doctor prescribing it along with opioids – is that it only encourages increasingly dangerous drug use, but research has suggested that opioid use may actually diminish after a brush with death. Proponents say that risks associated with naloxone use are minimal and that first responders like police or even family members with no medical training can learn to administer it safely.

Other barriers to its widespread use include legal concerns – people who witness an overdose may not call for medical attention or administer naloxone because they fear they will be prosecuted for using drugs themselves.”